@ADOBEUK

News, views and musings from the Adobe UK team

We are thrilled to note that this year’s Adobe Generation is bigger and better than ever before. Adobe Generation kicked off on the 19th of November with the Photo Imaging course. The first Photo Imaging session saw a record number of attendee’s and was the largest live class Adobe has ever held in any part of the world. Moreover, the attendee’s for the Photo Imaging class were not just UK based. With increased global applicants, in particular, Poland, USA and South Africa, our aim to reach and inspire people globally really is a reality. Currently 50% of the Photo Imaging course attendee’s are students. This further confirms Adobe Generation to have sparked interest for a wider demographic- students are not the only ones who want to hone their Creative Cloud skills.

Like all of the five free online Adobe Generation courses, the Photo Imaging course takes place every Tuesday over Adobe Connect, for a total of five weeks; that is five free online sessions! One student noted that “week 1 class crammed full of useful info, tutors really know their stuff & great participation from students” (Pip Pickering). The Photo Imaging seminars from professionals, Ian Usher and Ross Wallis are proving to be really popular. Why wouldn’t you want to take part? You are not too late to join in on the Photo Imaging action: register here, to access and attend the live seminars.

Following the huge success of Adobe Generation last year, we’re excited to announce that it’s back for the 2013/14 academic year – and it’s even bigger than before. We’re rolling out five new free online courses for up to 50,000 students (aged 14-19) and teachers across the country, adding Video Production and Apps Design courses to the Photo Imaging, Animationand Games Design sessions that we offered last year.

We know from our own research that there is growing demand from employers for so called ‘new creatives’ – they want a multi skilled workforce. By introducing the extra courses to Adobe Generation, we hope to support industry in creating this new workforce, and young people themselves in becoming multi-skilled, by giving them the opportunity to develop a wider range of digital design skills.

Adobe Generation is a great resource for anyone looking to expand their creative skills. Each of the five courses on offer will run over a five week period, with one live session taking place over Adobe Connect every Tuesday. During each weekly session, we, together with experts from each field, will be teaching a different creative discipline – for example, how to plot a story line of a game, or cut and edit a video into a final narrative sequence. We then set weekly tasks for students to do in between sessions so they can put those skills into practice, using a free trial of Adobe Creative Cloud.

In addition to learning practical skills, students will also be able to explore different creative careers firsthand through the help of our industry experts. This year we’ve got a raft of fantastic people lined up, including world class fashion photographer Kevin Foord and national newspaper Photo Editor Jason Brake, who will lead each session and share their own experiences of working in their chosen profession.

On completion of the course, students will be given an Adobe certificate to validate their skills and bolster their portfolio ahead of applying for university or a job. They will also be encouraged to continue their learning through the Adobe Certified Associate (ACA) – our national qualification validating entry-level skills in digital communications using Adobe tools.

Details of the new set of courses are as follows…

Photo Imaging – runs each Tuesday from 19th November – 17th December at 7- 8:30pm

Animation – runs each Tuesday from 7th January – 4th February at 7- 8:30pm

Video – runs each Tuesday from 25th February – 25th March at 7- 8:30pm

Games Design –runs each Tuesday from 29th April – 27th May at 7- 8:30pm

App Design – runs each Tuesday from 10th June – 8th July at 7- 8:30pm

So what are you waiting for? Sign up today at www.adobegeneration.com and follow all the latest #AdobeGen updates on Twitter.

You might have noticed that Twitter was being a bit temperamental last night, so we will be re-running our #CreativeWeekUK Twitter Chat on Monday (25th) as we saw the start of a great conversation developing.

So if you want to join us for a lively discussion on all things film and video, then join us between 6.30 and 7:30pm on Monday for what’s promising to be a really interest debate. Just add #CreativeWeekUK to all your tweets to take part in the discussion.

Anyone that took part last night will have been entered into the competition to win tickets to Creative Week on Wedensday 11th July, and we’ll be announcing the winners on Tuesday.

After our first buzzing Twitter Chat last week (resulting in us trending in the UK!), we can’t wait to discuss the glittering world of film and video this Thursday. Join us at the same time (6.30pm – 7.30pm) on Twitter and use #CreativeWeekUK to take part.

Recently, there’s been growing pressure for production companies to deliver more for less and we can’t wait to hear your view on whether this is leading to lower standards, or driving the industry forward with renewed creativity. Some of the topics up for discussion include;

Are quality standards being affected by reduced budgets – or are studios forcing more creative solutions instead?

How could clients make it easier for you to do great work within their budget and timescale requirements?

Do clients just expect you to do more with less, or are they approaching you with less ambitious ideas?

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this and the other questions we’ll be posing, so follow @AdobeUK to watch the conversation from the start.

Remember, everyone who uses #CreativeWeekUK in their tweets during the Twitter Chat will automatically be in with a chance of winning tickets to the Film & Video day of Creative Week on Wednesday 11th July, which will be jam-packed with exclusive demos, lively debates, creative challenges and inspirational case studies!

If you aren’t one of the lucky ticket holders, we’ll be broadcasting all the sessions live online, so why not register now?